This invention relates to the process of discovering the routing of a plurality of signal wires and more particularly telephone and data wire pairs, in a building environment.
As a result of the rapid changes in telecommunications technology and business climate, the typical wiring closet for telecommunications wiring is poorly documented. As office occupants move and telecommunications equipment is upgraded, any original documentation for telecommunications wiring is usually unreliable. In order to handle the large number of wire pairs typically found in an office environment, bulk termination connectors were created and standardized. These termination connectors provide some order to the telecommunications wiring but do not provide any information regarding the location of the far ends of the terminated wire pairs.
The difficulty in determining the routing of office wiring has resulted in a situation where large changes in the wire routing is not accomplished by simply moving interconnect jumpers but by abandoning existing telecommunications wiring and installing new wiring. This practice has resulted in large amounts of unused telecommunications wiring in buildings thus effecting fire safety. Recent changes in building code requirements now require removal of abandoned telecommunications wiring.
The process of identifying individual telecommunication wire pairs typically involves the application of a unique signal at the individual office terminus then search through the connection points at the bulk termination blocks where individual wire pairs from many offices are terminated. This process has been automated in several ways using a scanning device connected to a plurality of wire pairs at the bulk termination point. This device scans all connected pairs attempting to detect a unique tracing signal from the far end. When found, the device then signals back to the sending device, the location point in the bulk terminal. This process limits the speed in which large numbers of pairs can be mapped because only one craft person may originate a tracing signal at a time. Cost is high due to the need for specialized equipment to originate and scan for the tracing signal then communicate it back to the craft person from the far end.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,662 to Stephens, et al. shows a device that uses a switching matrix of relays to route test circuits to one or more wire pairs. The test circuits consist of pulse code modulation voice frequency recording and playback hardware. A feature of this device is to sequence a prerecorded voice vocabulary to each connected wire pair. The voice played back through each pair announces which pair number it is connected to. This allows a craft person using only common telephone equipment at the individual terminal ends to determine the connection point at bulk terminus. Since the device is routing the individual words to each connected pair without intervention, there is no limit on how many craft persons can be mapping the wire pairs simultaneously. The drawback to this device is that it only has one voice circuit and thus can only signal one pair at a time.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,233,558 to Whalley, et al. shows a device that incorporates a plurality of pulse code modulation voice playback circuits such that each connected wire pair does not have a delay caused by the playback of voice to other connected wire pairs. Otherwise, the practice of this device is the same as in Stephens to repeat a unique number by speech on each connected pair thus allowing identification with common telephone equipment.
It is desirable to map all the telecommunications wire pairs in an office in one step without extensive craft intervention to move signal sources even though points of concentration with bulk access may exist in multiple different locations. Without being able to identify every connection, the signal source moves result in lost craft time and repeated testing of unknown terminals in individual offices. Bulk terminations typically occur in several locations in an office environment and may involve a few circuits or hundreds of circuits on multiple bulk connectors in multiple disparate locations. Multiple apparatus with unique identification are necessary to achieve this goal. It is further desirable that temporary connections of mapping devices to bulk connectors be completed in bulk instead of individual wires.